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The Dice Giveth...
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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When you're +12 to stealth a 1 isn't that critical
Rolling a 1 on a skill check is an automatic failure at most tables I've sat at. Just like the common "Free Parking" house rule in Monopoly.
Yeah and free parking jackpots break monopoly by making the game run for hours
Failed skill checks on 1 break d&d by making skilled people fail regularly just as less skilled people do. I also play in the Palladium system where skill checks are on percentile dice and also don't fail on a minimum roll
One of the things I don't like about BG3 is that the rogue with godlike sneak can't get far with greater invisibility because everything they touch gives a 1/20 chance of being heard
When I roll a d&d skill I call out the total. A 1 might be 6 or 10. I'm not participating in rewriting the basic rules of the game
If you can't fail a skill check, there should be no roll. Same as most DMs won't make you do a skill check for "I sit down on a chair".
Rolling dice implies that there's a chance of failure.
Nope. 1/20 is much less regular than 5/20 or even 19/20. More skill doesn't mean it always works, only that your chances are higher. And if you are skilled enough that it always works, then there should be no roll.
The problem with this argument is that first off, the GM can't know your character sheet front-to-back because they're not playing your character, so they probably don't know if even a 1 will pass the DC they've set.
It's still far more common than is reasonable.
The GM should know exceptional stats of their player. Yes, I might not know some rarely relevant stat of my players, I but surely know how well the rogue stealths, how well the elf bowman arches, how well the mage spells and how hard the barbarian hits.
And even if I don't, the players can tell me the stat before a potential check.
I just think whether or not each and every player here has an outrageously high stat and what those stats are is a bit of an unnecessary hassle to add to the already long list of things the GM needs to keep track of.
I find that not very hard to keep track, honestly. They usually don't have a lot of them.
And in any case, the player can just say when they have one.
Best DMs did "whimsical" failures and successes.
That's a better way to put it. It's fun to have critical failures as much as critical successes. Especially when it's something that the character making the check on should easily handle.
"While normally, this lock would pose no challenge for you, in your confidence you did not notice the pebble on the floor, which causes you to trip and break your lock picking tools when you fall on top of them."
If the action is something that can never fail, there shouldn't be a skill check.
You don't roll dice on sitting down at a table, so if you are a perfect lock picker who always succeeds at picking locks, no dice should be thrown.
The Lockpicking Lawyer doesn't play with dice either.
Yessss!!!
In your haste to investigate the desk you fling open the desk's drawer to find it empty except a small stain of blood. Upon further inspection you notice a dagger shaped letter opener protruding from your thigh. The blood stain is related. You take one piercing damage.
Free Parking with extra money is an abomination
"Expensive Parking"
Instead of just being a boring space that does nothing, and contrast to it being like winning a lotto, now landing on the space requires payment to the bank of $250.
Yeah, Nat 1 is miraculous failure, Nat 20 is miraculous success in all games I've played